Caught in Traffic
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: Gunmax was a lot of things, but 'easy' wasn't one of them.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: ** Caught in Traffic (Pt. 1)

**Warnings: ** Creating a background. Deal with it.

**Rating: **G

**Continuity:** Brave Police J-Decker

**Characters:** Gunmax, Shadowmaru, Brave Police

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **_Gunmax - desk_

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_("Fanon says Gunmax is a slacker. I disagree with fanon. Why? Let me tell you…")_

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Gunmax was a difficult mecha on a good day. The rest of the time, he was the Devil on two wheels. His transfer into their unit, as one could imagine, hadn't been easy.

What the Brave Police hadn't realized the first time they'd met Gunmax was that the Motorcycle Detective had been working with Highway Patrol independent of them for _months_. Really, looking back at it, it was a marvel they hadn't heard of him before this. Well, okay, not that big of a marvel. The Brave Police were specialists. They were assigned cases, and they went out on them, and then they returned to the Decker Room. Gunmax had been an experiment in adding the BP series to the patrol cop force. He'd been a regular policeman in everything but the 'man' part. He'd been the Motorcycle Detective on paper, but other than the odd label instead of a family name, his name didn't stand out from the Highway Patrol's reports. The other BP units had actually used his information in cases assigned to them, but there hadn't been any clues in the paperwork that another of the BP series was up and about.

To be fair, he'd never encountered them, either. His job had required frequent, extensive, and _regular_ patrol work, with the occasional detective case thrown in. Their work was irregular at best, and their work required them to be out in the city on a case-by-case basis. He just wasn't around headquarters all that much, compared to them.

It was odd, however, how well Gunmax had blended into the police force. He'd been designed to do so, obviously, but none of the Brave Police managed that particular trick. Not that they'd ever had much of an opportunity to try, considering how they'd been immediately assigned to a separate task force, but it was a little weird that he'd been in the same damn building complex as them and they'd never noticed him before this.

Still…there was more to it than that.

It started with a simple question.

"Where's Gunmax?" Yuuta asked, and most afternoons they didn't know. At first, that was okay, because the green mecha eventually showed up at some point every day. They just didn't know when he'd get there, and they didn't know where he was coming from or where he was going when he left. But he was really, really irritating, so they were glad not to see him most of the day. He showed up when they had a case, and that was good enough for a while.

Except that it eventually dawned on them that Gunmax wasn't _there_.

"Where's the bastard sleep?" Power Joe asked one morning as they walked from the garage where they'd charged the night in the repair cradles. Six repair cradles, not seven, and six Brave Police slowed their walk as that suddenly filtered through their standard exasperation to strike a chord of curiosity in them. McCrane looked to Dumpson, who looked to Shadowmaru, who blinked and shrugged the same question at Deckerd.

"He's gotta sleep somewhere," Drill Boy pointed out the obvious later, staring at the empty seat at the desk they had cleaned out for Gunmax. And by 'cleaned out,' that really meant they evicted 46 soccer balls from its depths. Drill Boy had sulked for at least an hour that he'd had to relocate his ball stash elsewhere. Now he sulked because he'd cached them somewhere else (Shadowmaru yelled at him two weeks later for blocking the air ducts in the ceiling), but Gunmax wasn't using the desk they'd cleared out. Which was odd, now that he thought about it. "Doesn't he do reports?" he wondered out loud, standing up to go mess around at the desk.

"Drill Boy," McCrane began to chide him, but the crane hesitated. Curiosity stopped him from starting in on another lecture on respecting privacy, but also - even from here he could see that the desk drawers were empty. That was strange, wasn't it? He'd _seen_ Gunmax filling out reports. Where were they?

Deckerd saw his expression and stood up to join Drill Boy at the desk. "…how odd," their leader concluded softly when opening all the desk drawers revealed nothing more than a polishing cloth and a box of ammunition for a Magnum. Oh, and a pen that looked like it'd been chewed on. Gunmax had issues with his mouth beyond just what came out of it, apparently.

"**What**, is it inspection time and nobody warned me?" came a wisecrack from the door, flavored with distinctive English, and the entire Deckerd Room froze into a tableau of guilt.

Power Joe and Dumpson straightened up in their chairs, suddenly intensely interested in the soap opera channel. Look at those housewives and their drama, you two big mecha, you. Shadowmaru pretended to be in deep thought. You know, like y'do when you're a ninja. Deep thought. Air duct and infiltration type deep thought, mmhmm. McCrane had no way to hide how he'd been leaning over to peer at Gunmax's desk, but he oh-so-casually turned to give Gunmax a disarming smile as his Super A.I. scrambled for an excuse. All he was coming up with was a big fat mouthful of foot. Deckerd, their great leader the doofus, just stood there with a deer-in-headlights look firmly in place.

"I, uh, lost a soccer ball!" Drill Boy blurted out, and the whole room _whoosh_ed in relief when Gunmax slapped a hand over his visor. "Yeah, I can't find it! Do you have it? Because I think I kicked it up under your desk, and it's probably in the drawers, and I swear I saw it when you were here yesterday but now it's gone so I thought I could take a look but Deckerd said I couldn't go looking around in your desk without permission, and, and, ah," Drill Boy faltered.

"And you're a pain in the neck," Gunmax snapped, "until you get your way. I know, I know." He dropped his hand and sneered at the Build Team brat. "Keh. Like I know where your ball went?"

Like Gunmax was one to talk about being a pain until he got his way? But the Motorcycle Detective dropped it, and that was enough for everyone involved. Ugh, Drill Boy had just saved their bolts from another snit-fit a la Gunmax. They were quickly coming to the conclusion that they could do with less of those in their lives.

But now they were all curious.

It took them a week to figure out that the reason Gunmax didn't use the desk Yuuta had assigned him was because he already _had_ one. It took Shadowmaru another week to figure out where it was located, because nobody was going to man up and outright ask the mecha. Even Deckerd couldn't manage to ask the Motorcycle Detective anything about it, but that had more to do with Gunmax's incessant handcuff jokes than anything else. For some reason, Gunmax kept giving the Brave Detective sly smirks and referring back to that day, and the way he did so didn't _quite_ make sense. It left Deckerd a little flustered every time, and Gunmax merrily ran circles around his questions using that slight advantage.

Okay, fine. Different tactic: go over Gunmax's head.

Deckerd's hints to the Commissioner were met with an enigmatic smile, however. The man thought it'd do their Super A.I. good to sort personnel problems out themselves, and it probably would in the long run, but in the meantime he drove them half up the walls because he was incapable of not looking smug and know-it-all about it.

So that left Shadowmaru. He took a different approach entirely. Between him and McCrane, they sorted through the dozens of cases dealt with by Highway Patrol in the last three months, looking for any reference to Gunmax. To their surprise, he popped up all over the place. He and his partner had been involved in nearly all of the open cases dealing with motorcycles, gangs, theft, drive-bys, and simple traffic crimes on the open road. It made a kind of sense. There weren't that many actual detectives in Highway Patrol, so of course Gunmax had been assigned to those cases.

Shadowmaru quietly brought the case of Gunmax's ex-partner to Deckerd's attention. All the Braves knew about Kirisaki attempting to kill Gunmax and Deckerd, but the background between the Highway Patrolman and ex-partner was news to Shadowmaru. Deckerd just as quietly buried the information and told him to forget he ever saw it.

Reading through the reports yielded up a general location at last, and Shadowmaru ghosted off to the Highway Patrol building to search for their not-quite-missing Brave Police member. And thus began a frustrating week for the Ninja Detective.

Gunmax was an abrasive, blunt, Engrish-spouting cocky robot who stood over 5 meters tall. He kind of stood out in a crowd. Right? Seriously. The mecha walked into the Decker Room and stood out among his own _kind_, for pity's sake.

Yet, Shadowmaru lost him twice, two days in a row, five minutes after the green mecha sauntered into the Highway Patrol building.

Trying to follow the mecha was getting as annoying as dealing with him face-to-face was.

The Ninja Detective trailed Gunmax, crawling through the air ducts in his canine form, and determinedly kept the green 'bot in sight. He couldn't go by sound or smell, because one thing he'd discovered in the past three days was that Highway Patrol was thoroughly riddled with cocky men who smelled like motorcycles and asphalt, spoke random, badly-pronounced words of English, and didn't react _at all_ when passing a 5-meter-tall mecha in the halls. The ridiculous amount of overconfidence Gunmax sported with practically an epidemic here. It raised the interesting question of whether the mecha had learned it from the cops he worked with, or if he'd come pre-programmed as a jerk.

There was something so casual in the way the Motorcycle Detective walked the halls. Shadowmaru had thought he'd be able to track the green mecha easily; there were only so many hallways in the building that allowed for someone four times the height of a normal human being. Instead, Gunmax hadn't even paused while ducking to fit through the back entrance and sliding in a half-crouch/half-crawl through the halls. The cops who encountered him stood aside without even interrupting their own conversations, only stopping to greet the robot before continuing on their ways once he cleared the hall. Shadowmaru had almost lost the green mecha again today because there were just no _reactions_ left in his wake. In all the Ninja Detective's previous experience, most humans at least mentioned a giant mechanical being who'd passed by them!

Highway Patrol was so used to Gunmax he barely even pinged on their weirdness radar anymore. Shadowmaru didn't really know what to think about that.

When the Motorcycle Detective finally reached the main office, Shadowmaru hunkered down next to his chosen vent cover and watched closely, waiting to see which office the green mecha went into. He was obviously here to work. He had a sheaf of reports in one hand, and there was a pen held between his teeth.

Gunmax stood up, dusted himself off, and strolled across the room. Well, strutted. There was something so intrinsically cocky to the mecha's walk that Shadowmaru had to grit his teeth just watching him. It nearly made him miss what Gunmax was doing. And that would have been a shame, because he hated it when he underestimated people.

With all the attitude, it was oddly hard to focus on the fact that Gunmax was strutting his way between the humans' desks with a contradictive care for where he set every footstep. The humans littered the passageways between their desks with waste bins and spare chairs. One sleeping cop even had his feet stuck straight out in the aisle. Gunmax didn't miss a beat as he navigated the obstacle course. The bins were dodged, the cop remained undisturbed, and Shadowmaru momentarily stopped watching Gunmax when he noticed that every other cop in the room was walking _exactly like_ the mecha. They all moved like they didn't have a care in the world, but at the same time, they were extremely aware of their surroundings. 90% cover attitude, 10% actually looking like they gave a damn, but an astute observer could see how those percentages measured up to reality.

The dog mecha blinked. Then he blinked again, because he'd just lost Gunmax.

_What_ the - ? No!

He narrowed his optics and glared through the vent. No, no, not again. None of the window shades on the office doors were moving. Gunmax hadn't left via any of the doors, and Shadowmaru knew none of the other BP series had stealth modifications like he did. The green mecha had to be in the room _somewhere_.

It took him a full minute to process the simple fact that he'd been scanning too high up. Even sitting down, a mecha was over twice a human's height. Or rather, he was if he was sitting in a chair meant for a giant robot. Shadowmaru had to reset his entire visual system when he finally caught on.

Gunmax's desk was level with all the other desks around him. His seat, however, was set into the floor. Instead of sitting with his chair at head-height for the rest of the room, the green mecha's head and shoulders were all that were visible across the sea of cops busy at their own work. The Motorcycle Detective had already made himself comfortable, idly chewing on the end of another pen and tapping a can of gasoline on his desk as he read over the reports spread out before him. And nobody was so much as looking in his direction.

Shadowmaru looked around the room. He looked at all the cops treating the robot like just another rookie, ignoring him but for the occasional greeting thrown his way. The Commissioner had said Highway Patrol wanted to kick Gunmax out, and after seeing Gunmax's descent into uncontrolled methods via the reports he'd combed through, Shadowmaru couldn't blame the department. He also couldn't blame Gunmax. Nothing had been stated in the case report's bland language, but reading between the lines had given a bigger picture on what Gunmax had gone through in the weeks prior to meeting the other BP units. Finding out his partner was a criminal must have been a shock, and Shadowmaru felt a twinge of sympathy for the massive betrayal.

Gunmax's behavior had settled slightly after accepting that Deckerd wasn't going to abandon him, but he still returned here when his shifts with his Brave Police unit partner were over. Thing was, new partners could be assigned. If Gunmax had stabilized, wounded Super A.I. feelings steadying out, that opened him up to being reassigned a new human partner. He might even want that, no matter what he _tsk_ed and Englished at certain mechas or little boys who pried at him about where he went or what he was doing when he wasn't around. Highway Patrol obviously wasn't in any hurry to kick their mecha-cop out, whatever their intentions had been sending him over to the Brave Police. Gunmax's desk was still here. His repair cradle had to be somewhere, too.

Shadowmaru had the sinking feeling that Gunmax hadn't been using his desk in the Decker Room because he was still being assigned shifts on the Highway Patrol roster. He certainly seemed busier than any of the other BP units, most of the time. The Ninja Detective began worming his way back through the ducts, already planning a few inter-departmental computer hacks to find out just what was going on. He didn't think it was Gunmax alone who was making this transfer so difficult, not any more. As Vice-Commissioner Azuma proved on a weekly basis, Police Headquarters was run by more politics than intelligence. Gunmax was BP 601, the first of the BP units assigned to another department. It was an experiment, but with experiments came status. If Highway Patrol let Gunmax go, they'd lose that special bit of glory he brought them.

Unless the transfer completed, Gunmax would never really join the Brave Police. That weakened the unit as a whole. Having a member who wasn't there did none of them any good.

Gunmax was a total asshole. He was someone who went out of his way to seem like he didn't give a crap and was too badass for words. He annoyed the entire unit to the point of shouting matches and insults.

He was also courageous, competent, and one of them. He made Yuuta laugh and Deckerd smile. Even Power Joe had grudgingly admitted that Gunmax was one of the good guys.

He belonged with the Brave Police.

'_Brave up, Decker Room,' _Shadowmaru thought grimly._ 'We've got a fight on our hands.'_

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	2. Pt 2

**Title: ** Caught in Traffic (Pt. 2?)

**Warnings: ** Creating a background. Deal with it.

**Rating: **G

**Continuity:** Brave Police J-Decker

**Characters:** Gunmax, Deckerd, Brave Police

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **_Gunmax - Deckerd_

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"Gunmax always got a reaction."

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There came a time in every Brave's life where he had to face that most irritating of chores, the most tiresome of tasks, the just plain annoying side-job. Today was Gunmax's time.

"**Say again**?" The English words earned a confused look, and Deckerd had a particularly effective confused look on call just for days he dealt with Gunmax. The already expressive optics turned down at the corners, and the big optical lights behind the orange glass suddenly brightened and then dimmed slowly. The long lines of the cheek lengthened as Deckerd's mouth drew down into a not-quite frown, and his brows puckered, one higher than the other. The whole look combined into a _'I don't understaaaaaand'_ expression not even utter jerks were immune to.

The rogue Brave's helm rocked back, and he visibly reined in the second language. "What. Did you. Say?"

Dealing with the Motorcycle Detective was kind of like attempting to sit on a mechanical cactus. There was no safe area, and inevitably it ended with Deckerd getting pricked. Also, having a sore bottom. "You have soccer duty today," Deckerd said again, a little more cautiously this time. He kept his back to the wall, because such cautions were a necessity around Gunmax. At least out in the hallway, where Yuuta or, uh, other witnesses weren't around to keep the rebel BP unit's sense of humor in check.

He felt relatively safe for now, as the green mecha seemed to be concentrating more on Deckerd's words than his aft. "Soccer duty." The question came out flat and totally unimpressed. "**Come on**. Really." Even behind the visor, the level of impressed visibly dropped into negative zones in Gunmax's optics. Deckerd knew that next would come the - "You humor the brat too much," was scoffed right before, yep, _there_ was the hip-sway as Gunmax turned on a heel, and _there_ was the insolent little salute thrown back over a shoulder. "Soccer's not covered in my programming. Later, patrol car."

Deckerd caught the salute out of peripheral vision, considering the fact that all of his visual sensor filters were locked on the cocky roll only Gunmax managed to get out his hip joints. Uh, not that Deckerd would admit to that fact. But he'd caught a couple of the other Braves outright staring at that swaying green aft, too. There was something so frustratingly _mesmerizing_ about Gunmax walking away, and it didn't just have to do with Gunmax going away. Well, most of the time. Some of the time. Occasionally.

All the Braves enjoyed watching Power Joe and Shadowmaru in motion when they did their respective martial arts, but Gunmax moved like…Gunmax. His deliberate strut and sashay made their Super A.I.'s spark and fizzle, and none of them could pinpoint why. Dumpson had compared it to how their first visit to the Art Museum had stimulated their A.I. self-development sub-programs, but the ability to be overly self-confident until everyone in the room was irritated wasn't _art_. Talent, maybe, but not art. If the BP units were developing because of Gunmax, it was as if they were somehow missing a critical point of data about him. His aft, in particular. And…thighs. Legs in general, really. How they moved, but also how they looked when Gunmax crossed his legs while sitting at his desk, or stood up, or leaned over, or sat on Gunbike, or - well. Yes.

Shadowmaru had grinned and mentioned how his automatic targeting system kept zeroing in on the Motorcycle Detective. McCrane had uncomfortably admitted to a similar thing happening to him around Colonel Seia, and Dumpson had muttered something about Miss Ayako. Power Joe just buried himself in his soap operas and pretended he hadn't been staring, nope, not him. Gunmax who? Long legs and shiny white what?

Much to the Build Team's not-so-subtle relief, Drill Boy didn't seem to suffer the rest of the BP department's baffling fixation. Er, except for the comment about how Gunmax had nice legs…for running around a soccer field.

Speaking of which.

...the _soccer_, not the _nice legs_, oh, Deckerd was getting flustered again and Gunmax hadn't even done anything. Nothing but be Gunmax, and that was sufficient some days. He really needed to talk to the chief about the way his Super A.I. just started running itself around in weird, pointless circles lately.

The Brave Detective yanked his attention back to the matter at hand. He took a couple step forward, hand outstretched after Gunmax. "Gunmax! Stop!"

The green mecha did, standing with his back to the taller Brave. Out of respect or sheer curiosity was always a toss-up, but most of the time Gunmax actually did listen when Deckerd said something. Not necessarily _closely_, but hey, it was more than he did for other people. Deckerd appreciated it, either way. Sometimes with Gunmax, you took what you could get. Hell, you grabbed it with both hands and a rivet gun in Deckerd's case, because he knew better than to give up any ground he won in the battle to win the Highway Patrolman's chary trust. It was like trying to tame to hand a feral iron beast, fickle as a cat and twice as arrogant to cover all the abuse it'd gone through.

Fortunately, Deckerd had a thing for caring for stray cats.

"It's not in your programming, but it _is_ in Drill Boy's," Deckerd stated in that peculiarly coaxing tone he had labeled in his databanks as _Yuuta: Homework Vs. Playtime_. It now had a second label as _Gunmax: BP Duty Vs. Highway Patrol_. Hopefully, as a detective, offering a tidbit of information would interest Gunmax enough to ask a question or two. Get his mind engaged, and - yep, just watch at that hip swivel. Deckerd had to force himself not to.

"**What**? That makes no sense," Gunmax said. He waved a hand. "Not that the brat ever does, but obviously soccer's in his programming or he wouldn't be crazy enough to punt soccer balls as a weapon. Why would that mean anything to me?"

_Sniff sniff_. Look at the undomesticated detective find the trail. Heeeere, kitty kitty. Follow the trail of info-bytes into Deckerd's gentle hands.

"It's not something Drill Boy can just turn off. It's as present in his processors outside of fights as it is in the middle of one. You may have noticed he's always bouncing a ball or two in the Decker Room?" he asked dryly, because it was hard _not_ to notice the amount of soccer balls Drill Boy stashed around the place for use wherever he ended up sitting or standing at any given moment. Gunmax just gave him the _This Is How Unimpressed I Am_ look and Deckerd smiled. "The commissioner supplies him with so many regular, non-weaponized soccer balls our size because the need to play is code-deep. If we don't have a fight, Drill Boy's urge to play becomes an obsessive compulsion. We started a rotating 'soccer duty' to keep him from shorting out. He did, once," he added when Gunmax opened his mouth to spout an exasperated wisecrack. "He went two weeks without a match and, ah, glitched. Badly. Chief Toudou tried to fix it, but it's part of how he is. We decided this was the best solution."

The green mecha subsided slightly, turning his head with a _tuh!_ grunt, but Deckerd took note of the way he folded his arms and wasn't outright dismissing the whole idea anymore. Apparently, the chief carried some weight with him. Hmm. That was potentially useful.

"This isn't an indulgence, Gunmax," he said, bringing out the stern police officer tone now. "It's something we all have to do to keep Drill Boy functioning at peak condition." He put emphasis on the 'all' portion, giving the other mecha a significant look. Technically, Gunmax was part of the Brave Police. That didn't make him any less part of Highway Patrol, however. Shadowmaru was working on tracing the political situation in Police Headquarters, but getting Gunmax himself to actually start committing to them would be something not even Vice-Commissioner Azuma could manipulate.

Grumble, grumble, bitch and moan. The Highway Patrolman glared at the hallway wall, and his fingers twitched against his upper arm. To Deckerd, it looked like he was calculating something. Rapidfire emotional reaction equations, perhaps. Deckerd took another step forward, easing into the green mech's personal space bubble like a diver dipping a toe into water that looked fine but could shoot to boiling at any second. That got a flash of orange through the visor, but for the moment his invasion was tolerated. It was a minor triumph, and Deckerd chalked one more point on his internal scoreboard. The blue mecha repressed a smile, although he was sure his pleased aura leaked out anyway. Yuuta always managed to catch it when he'd been coaxed into 10 minutes more of homework, anyway.

The Brave Detective handled Gunmax as if he were a starving wildcat. Catmax would let hunger temporarily overcome independence when someone set out a bowl of food, but he wouldn't be gracious about it. _'I will allow you near me, but I don't need you. Not really. I'll bolt if you try and get familiar with me_.'

Good kitty. Nice kitty. C'mere and let Deckerd pet you, Gunmax.

Deckerd froze for a split second, optics flickering. Something about that, if he could just -

No. It was gone as quickly as it'd come.

…okay, his Super A.I. had just taken the stray beastie comparison in a direction he wasn't sure he completely understood. He felt some confusion and - um. Confusion was the most identifiable emotion, yes. He replayed the thought, trying to pick it apart, but the reason behind his reaction slipped through the cracks and disappeared.

Deckerd definitely needed to have that talk with Chief Toudou.

The wall had been thoroughly glared into submission when the dark visor finally turned toward Deckerd again. "What exactly," Gunmax growled, reluctant acquiescence hidden in a warning sound, "is 'soccer duty'."

A smile broke through, a radiate beam of approval. Deckerd was a firm believer in positive reinforcement, so showing approval was never bad. Gunmax had made the right decision. _Good_ kitty! "Yuuta has a game manual from his P.E. teacher you can read," he said cheerfully as he turned to lead the way back to the Decker Room. "Drill Boy's always willing to talk us through the rules, so you just have to ask if you prefer to listen instead of - _yeep!_"

Later, Deckerd would staunchly deny that such an undignified yipe came out of him, but he couldn't deny the newest scuff marks on his aft. Discerning optics could map out the shape of fingertips.

"Will you break out the handcuffs if I break the rules, **baby**?" came from behind him as his pace suddenly quickened to a near-run, and that cat comparison was going to haunt Deckerd. Or at least pinch him on the aft.

Gunmax's purr followed him all the way back to the Decker Room.

**[* * * * *]**


	3. Pt 3

**Title: ** Caught in Traffic (Pt. 3?)

**Warnings: ** Creating a background. Deal with it.

**Rating: **G

**Continuity:** Brave Police J-Decker

**Characters:** Gunmax, Dumpson, Brave Police

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **_Yuuta - appreciation_

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"They had questions without answers."

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Dumpson admitted that Shadowmaru had a point. Deckerd, too. Gunmax was the most irritating mecha this side of the law, but he'd turned the tide of battle more than once. The Motorcycle Detective was a strong fighter and an even stronger weapon when transformed into his Max Cannon Mode. Dumpson could recognize the worth of that.

He didn't protest the plan. Bringing Gunmax over to the Brave Police should have been simple, but men like Vice-Commissioner Azuma seemed to specialize in complicating simple things. It was apparently up to the Decker Room to do it themselves, because the humans were mired in politics. Although Shadowmaru stealing all of the Highway Patrolman's pens seemed petty even for inter-office warfare. It'd been an experiment in seeing what it'd take to get Gunmax to use his desk in the Decker Room instead of the Highway Patrol building, but the tactic seemed to only result in Gunmax producing office supplies out of every orifice imaginable. Also improbable, because, well, a stapler? Dumpson was still trying to figure out where the stapler had come from, and he'd been standing right next to the green mecha when Gunmax had produced it.

Deckerd remarked on the plethora of hidden pens after Shadowmaru had casually swiped about fifteen more that'd surfaced after the ninja's initial office supply raid. The green mecha had finally caught on and refused to loan his deskmate any more after the first five were never returned, but Shadowmaru was good at 'borrowing.' He had a whole locked drawer in his desk full of things he'd found that people didn't even knew they'd lost, too. The evidence lab regularly sorted through it for relevant items after suspects were in custody.

Gunmax didn't know about the drawer - yet - but he knew enough to keep a death grip on his current pen. "Always have some on you, **boy scout**, Gunmax advised, keeping his head angled enough to watch the ninja innocently writing his own reports opposite him. Shadowmaru seemed oblivious to the amount of visored suspicion glaring in his direction. "Ever had to write with a human-sized pen?"

As one, all the Braves looked to the front of the room. Yuuta's desk was surprisingly tidy considering the age of its owner, but there were still a couple pens on one corner. Dumpson looked down at his hand, imagining his large fingers trying to the close on the tiny items. He might be able to do it. Theoretically, if he could wedge the friction pads on his fingertips against the stick of plastic just right, he could write. Er, maybe.

He looked up and saw the others eying their own hands as if sizing up the task. They came up a bit short. Shadowmaru looked thoughtful as he turned his hand this way and that, glancing between Yuuta's pens and his current report, and Drill Boy had extended his cockpit's internal arm to stare at speculatively.

"No?" Deckerd ventured at last, tone asking the question none of them would ask.

Gunmax scowled faintly at his report as he wrote, optics and furrowed brow concealed behind his visor. Wrote? Scribbled, more like. Dumpson hated Gunmax's penmanship. How could such an expression of concentration produce a report that looked like a toddler had written it? Deckerd and Power Joe both wrote with the boxy perfection of grade school children worried about being graded on their handwriting, and Drill Boy's reports suffered from a surfeit of doodles in the margins, but McCrane's reports looked like art. Every time Dumpson saw Gunmax's sloppy scrawl, he wanted to shove the Motorcycle Detective at McCrane in hopes that some of the calligraphy skills would rub off.

"I wouldn't recommend it," the green mecha said, abruptly pushing his chair back to stand and slap the report down on Deckerd's desk. Deckerd jumped in his seat, startled, and Gunmax gave him a cocky grin. It had a weirdly bitter edge to it. "Especially when you need to write your first traffic ticket." The bitterness deepened, and Dumpson's puzzlement with it, because Deckerd's expression had taken on a just-as-weird hint of sympathy. The idea of Gunmax trying to use a human-sized pen to write his first traffic ticket was enough to make the dumptruck smile, but the two mecha, green and blue, seemed to be having a unvoiced conversation beneath the words.

"With your brand new partner standing there evaluating your performance the whole time," Gunmax almost off-handedly added as he turned away from the Brave Detective. "**Not cool**." Deckerd's optics widened. Dumpson glanced to the Build Team only to see them exchanging a look as confused as he felt, but the moment was over by the time they turned back. Gunmax had retreated to his desk to grab his Magnum off the top, and he tossed the room as a whole a salute as he holstered it and sauntered toward the door. "**See ya, losers**."

Shadowmaru waited until the door closed before opening his desk drawer and counting the new stash of stolen pens. Dumpson grinned when McCrane turned his head away to hide the amused crinkle around his optics. The image of the Ninja Detective gleefully gathering pens like a magpie finding shiny things was as cute as Drill Boy jigging at the loading dock waiting for a delivery of a new crate of weaponized soccer balls. "This is going to take more effort than I thought," the purple mecha said after a few minutes of gloating over his hoard.

"It won't work," Power Joe predicted. He pointed at the clock on his desk, frowning. "He only stayed until the shift finished. Taking his stuff is only going to make him even more of insufferable jerk when he's here, not make him be here more often." And make them not want him there even less, but he didn't say that. They were all thinking it, but he didn't say it.

"The Highway Patrol budget for the BP project isn't nearly the size of our department's. They won't buy him any more. If our dear BP-601 doesn't want to use human pens, he'll have to come calling more often in order to use ours," the ninja said softly, and helms turned as that sank in.

Drill Boy looked a bit confused, but budgeting wasn't something that the rest of the department had involved him in. The other Braves knew exactly how much their ammunition and maintenance cost every time they were assigned a case. What they didn't know was filled in down to the last yen by Vice-Commissioner Azuma. Commissioner Saejima had never put a cap on their expenditures, but Deckerd had held several low-voiced budget meetings about that fact with him. The gist of those meetings had then been passed on to the other Braves in this very room while Drill Boy and Yuuta were occupied elsewhere. Just because the cap didn't exist didn't mean it wouldn't some day. The goal was to keep their costs as low as possible to keep their budget free for when they really, really needed the money.

Like, say, when Chief Engineer Toudou had to make a massive parts purchase because one of the BP units got totaled in battle. Humans worried about the money for hospital bills. The Braves worried that they'd be left in pieces because gears and hydraulic fluid were too expensive to buy this month.

Dumpson exchanged another speaking look with Power Joe and McCrane. Another clue in the Great Gunmax Mystery had just slotted into place. Despite himself, Dumpson couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the obnoxious jackass. Other cops got health insurance and benefits supplied by the municipal government, as well as regular duty-related supplies paid for by their divisions. What kind of budget stipulations did Gunmax have, separated from the actual Brave Police department as he was? Pens were a minor expense, comparatively, but it wasn't like the BP units could just run out to the store and buy some on their own. Everything they used to work had to be specially made for their size, and the money certainly wasn't under their control. Police Headquarters was their station, not their home, and they earned no salary. Everything they received for work or - rarely - play came through the Committee. Their requests for more pens were _allowed_ according to a Committee vote, but they did have an entire department budget to draw on.

Gunmax didn't. Gunmax needed new pens because Shadowmaru had stolen all his pens. The Decker Room had acquisition forms to at least fill out and file until the Committee listened to them, but Gunmax didn't have their forms or their budget. He didn't have the power over his own job, or even his own life, to buy new pens himself.

None of them did. That was nothing new. Suddenly, however, that fact of their lives wasn't so small or easy to ignore. Usually, it was just _there_, part of their existence, but when it got shoved in their faces like this…

McCrane's mouth tightened. Power Joe's hands drew into fists. Dumpson consciously stopped his foot from tapping on the floor, knowing it was a bad habit that gave his mood away. Drill Boy was glancing between the other Build Team members anxiously, torn between automatically chattering to dispel the tension or being serious and asking what everyone was looking glum about. Deckerd had turned his head toward Yuuta's desk, hiding his expression, but the set of his shoulders wasn't happy. Shadowmaru's subdued gloating over his stolen hoard had come to a dead stop.

They dropped the topic, on the surface because they didn't want to distress Drill Boy, but mostly because there wasn't anything they could _do_. Rubbing Gunmax's face in his lack of control wasn't a nice move, but inter-departmental warfare wasn't about nice. It was about getting their rogue BP unit back where he belonged, no matter what strings Highway Patrol pulled with Vice-Commissioner Azuma. Dumpson knew it. It bothered him immensely, because police work shouldn't have that uncomfortable shade of grey around it, but still. The plan was sound, even if the tactics made his hoses knot inside his chest.

The knot eased a little when the plan seemed to start working. Oh, not right away. Shadowmaru slowly whittled away at Gunmax's cache of pens, but the green mecha responded by squirreling away errant pens from the other Braves' desks when no one was looking. That ended when Power Joe called upon his league of primary school friends to personalize the Brave Police department's pens, which is how Dumpson ended up with pens that had his name spelled out in glitter stickers. That wasn't so bad. Kind of cute, although he'd never hear the end of it the next time Miss Ayako saw his desk.

He got off lighter than Shadowmaru, however, who took one look at the adorable little bat wings Emily had carefully glued onto the ends of all his pens, froze into a stricken statue, and promptly vanished for days. That had been…yeah. Power Joe had lied his aft off to Emily about accidentally losing Shadowmaru's special pens during a case, and she'd still been heartbroken that all her hard work had gone to waste. Power Joe had brought her all of Gunmax's 'borrowed' pens and a whole pack of neon-colored pipe cleaners to make up for it, and now Shadowmaru's pens all sported wire stick-figure sculptures in whacky colors.

Of course, McCrane now had to write reports with his fingers painstakingly placed around the dozens of paper origami tigers and plushie pandas glued to his pens. It made it easy to see when Gunmax used his pens, however. It was easier for all of them. Once all their pens were clearly marked as 'theirs', it became really easy to see when the Motorcycle Detective sneaked away with a handful. Unmarked pens vanishing into Gunmax's hands? Easy to miss. A handful of glittery-stickered pens spelling "I Brake For Reporters" and "I (heart) Yuuta"? Not so easy to overlook.

Smooshed decorations and teethmarks betrayed unlawful usage within the Decker Room, as well as outright theft. Gunmax had issues with sticking things other than his own foot in his mouth. Drill Boy complained bitterly about the teethmarks on his soccer-ball end-nubbed pens. McCrane just mildly asked Power Joe to request a few more paper tigers from Masaki to replace the mangled ones on his pens. That made the Motorcycle Detective squirm in his chair, however much he tried to look like he was busy reading at the time, and two days later, awkwardly-folded origami began appearing on McCrane's desk like the world's most backward apology.

Dumpson deliberately dropped them into the wastepaper basket whenever he was the first one in the Decker Room in the mornings. He didn't want Gunmax being around his team anymore than necessary, and stupid little paper animals were no substitute for a proper apology. McCrane had too soft a heart. He'd let the jerk get away with his jerk behavior if Dumpson didn't intervene.

The whole situation left Gunmax with no choice but to man up and ask Deckerd for a box of pens of his own. Okay, so less of 'ask' and more like 'demand'. The green mecha was painfully blunt most days, but it'd taken him a good forty minutes to finally get around to anything that sounded even vaguely like a direct request for some pens. The Braves' fearless leader had smiled at all the excuses and justifications and hints, but he'd agreed to submit the paperwork for new pens - after laying down the rule that they didn't leave the Decker Room, as they were BP department property.

One thing in Gunmax's favor was that he was honest to a fault. Offensively frank, outrageous, and rude, but honest. He'd bitched and moaned about it, but in the end, he'd agreed to Deckerd's terms. The other Braves had practically strained their shoulders patting each other on the back when Gunmax very reluctantly began bringing in his Highway Patrol reports to work on in the Decker Room.

Once decorated by Power Joe's friends, Gunmax would have been hard-pressed to smuggle the pens out, anyway. The kids didn't know Gunmax at all, so they'd erred on the side of sparkly and just dunked the pens in loose glitter. Gunmax's hands sparkled after using them to write. It'd irritated the macho Highway Patrolman at first, but then he'd apparently started taking a perverse joy in leaving shiny handprints in bizarre areas. Like McCrane's hip, Drill Boy's head, Deckerd's aft, and the ceiling. Nobody knew how Gunmax had even gotten up there, but Shadowmaru had taken it as a personal insult, as he'd been on clean-up duty that day.

The handprints, as most things about Gunmax did, annoyed Dumpson. The green mecha just got on his nerves. Yes, they'd met under less than ideal circumstances. Yes, the Highway Patrolman had stabilized considerably in the last month. He still didn't think Gunmax had the right mindset for a cop. Using the Boss as a human shield had been bad enough, but blowing off his Brave Police duties regularly set Dumpson's teeth on edge. The Vice-Commissioner was causing inter-departmental problems, yeah, headquarters politics, okay, but Gunmax wasn't helping matters with his attitude problems. It kind of helped knowing that all the difficulties weren't _all_ his fault, but it didn't mean Dumpson liked him any better.

Especially when the green idiot stopped by his desk one day and stated, "You smell."

"What?" The truck reared back in his seat and gaped, too taken aback to properly react for a moment.

The white helmet tipped to one side, and Gunmax's perpetual smirk widened. The Motorcycle Detective actually leaned closer and _sniffed_, which was crass of him. Their scent modules were located on the roof of their mouths; their noses didn't even have nostrils to draw in air. "Diesel. You smell like diesel. The brat and the **doggie** stink to the airport and back of kerosene, but they're better about it. You three," his hand waved at the cluster of desks where the three original Build Team members sat, "just reek."

"It's jet fuel, not kerosene," Dumpson's mouth answered on automatic. "Whaddya mean I - we do not!"

"_Teh_." Gunmax straightened up, making the bulkier mech suddenly aware that he'd recoiled before the invasion of his personal space. Dumpson sat up with an angry scowl, then stood up to use whatever height advantage he could. Dealing with Gunmax, you had to break out every weapon available. The slightly shorter mecha folded his arms and stuck out a hip, arrogance written in every line of his body. The refusal to so much as acknowledge Dumpson's superior looming capabilities made him even more annoying. "You do."

It was juvenile, and yet he still couldn't stop the words even as he thought that. "Do not!"

By the smirk's width, the green mech was congratulating himself on said juvenile retort. Yeah, that's right, sink to his level, Dumpson. "**Yeah, y'do**."

"Do no - _stop_ that." It wasn't clear if Dumpson was referring to the bad English or the stupid argument. "And what would you know, anyway!"

A delighted gleam light the partially-obscured optics behind that damn visor, and the truck realized he'd just walked straight into a verbal trap. "I'm a _detective_," Gunmax said, wounded dignity and horrid evil smirk blooming out from him in smug waves. "I investigate things. There was a stench, and I investigated to discover the source. I thought you, as a fellow detective, might want to know **it's all you**." That hip popped further out, as if all that attitude weighed heavy upon him. "Hit the car wash, huh?"

"You _bastard_," Dumpson started, and Power Joe had rocketed to his feet beside him, and it was going to get ugly real quick -

"Are you still planning on visiting Miss Ayako tonight, Dumpson?" McCrane asked. Although his voice was level and cut through Dumpson's rage and Power Joe's wordless burst of angry sound, the glare the crane leveled on Gunmax was anything but calm.

Bewildered, Dumpson blinked at his team leader. "Uh…yeah?"

"I believe," McCrane said, "that Gunmax was merely trying to…suggest," he said the word distastefully, and Gunmax's already-fading smug grin congealed under the chill blast of trademarked McCrane Brand Disapproval, "that humans are not as tolerant of the scent of diesel as we are. Perhaps you should wash your tires after fueling up tonight, as the rubber tends to collect petrol and oil off the fueling station floor?"

This was a real suggestion, not an insult wrapped around one, and Dumpson was abruptly aware of - scent.

Air traveled naturally over his tongue, funneling up to the scent modules on the roof of his mouth, and the receptors broke down the air for analysis. Technically, there was nothing wrong with the air in the Decker Room. It had the same levels of chemicals present that much of the city air did, but there were certain things present in larger amounts. Carbon emissions, of course, because the Brave Police were robots that ran their engines off of petroleum products, and petroleum itself evaporated into a gaseous state that clung in a thick scent to all of them. Which didn't mean much to a regular robot, but what slammed head-on into Dumpson's Yuuta-given heart was the fact that he had a _preference_ for how air should smell, and this? This room didn't smell how he preferred.

He preferred the light scent of the ocean, the dusty scent of old newspapers and books, and ginkgo biloba facial crème. Nowhere in the Decker Room, or the maintenance bay, or anywhere where robots should be, had he gotten that preference. He probably shouldn't even have a preference, not like that, because he was guiltily aware of just why he preferred those scents.

He'd just…never thought about it before.

"Um," Power Joe said from beside him, obviously having run the same analysis. "What do I smell like?"

"Bad kung fu movies," Gunmax said promptly, then flinched slightly as the McCrane Brand Disapproval rating in the Decker Room went up. Smooth move, asshole. "Candy and diesel," he finished in a more subdued tone, and that hip wasn't sticking out quite so much. He had some strange form of respect for McCrane, Dumpson remembered. He respected the crane's professionalism or something. "You smell like diesel and green tea," the green mecha said to McCrane like a peace offering.

The Build Team leader inclined his head, graciously accepting the implied apology. "Colonel Seia spilled a mug of her tea on my upholstery last week. I haven't asked the maintenance crews to clean my seats yet. It's hardly an urgent issue."

"Masaki," Power Joe sighed as he dug through his cab. Now that he was aware of it, Dumpson could smell the sweet tang of sugar hovering about the power shovel, and Power Joe was on the hunt for the source. Somewhere hidden in his small driver's cab, one of his school children friends had apparently lost a piece of candy. "I told them not to eat inside me."

Dumpson frowned thunderously, unwilling to let Gunmax's general smart-assery get a free pass. So the bastard had a point about the smell. Tact was a requirement for a policeman! He turned his head to inhale deeply of the air around the green mecha, intending on making a comment of his own.

Except that chemical analysis yielded…huh. That was odd.

The invasion of the cocky robot's personal space got an annoyed glare that almost covered Gunmax's defensive posture. Apparently McCrane's application of Verbal Smackdown had been super effective. "**What**?" Gunmax snapped.

"You _don't_ stink," the dumptruck said, doing his level best to match the green mecha's offensively blunt language. "What'd you do, crawl through a carwash before walking in here?" That was a mental image he wanted to see in reality, actually. How did the Highway Patrolman keep so clean without a vehicle transformation? So far as Dumpson knew, Gunmax didn't even know where the BP maintenance bay was, much less ever used the attached washracks. No one had ever managed to collar the rebel unit long enough for a formal tour of the department building to show him where they were.

He casually reached down and jotted a note to himself about that with his sticker bedecked pen. Not just the tour part - did they even have Magnum ammunition in the lock-up? - but the surrounding questions that brought up. Shadowmaru really needed to track down where exactly Gunmax's repair cradle was stowed. There were too many questions about his basic maintenance going unanswered.

"**As if**," Gunmax scoffed in the meantime. "_I_ don't reek for the same reason **blue boy** doesn't."

Oh, gods, more bad English. They really needed a translator program, at this rate. Contextually, the first two (One? Three? Who knew, with English) words were probably an exclamation of disbelief. **Blue** was the color blue, at least Dumpson thought that sounded familiar, and **boy**…um, no, he didn't remember what that one meant. But the only blue mecha in the Brave Police was Deckerd, and Gunmax did tend to assign random English slang words to Deckerd. Dumpson couldn't tell if it was a sign of affection or contempt.

In any case, Gunmax was probably referring to Deckerd. "You both run on unleaded?" Power Joe hazarded a guess.

"No, because I'm only getting whiffs of fumes." Dumpson's frown deepened, but thought instead of disapproval was the source this time. Hmm, a puzzle. "Even unleaded petroleum registers higher than this." He leaned further forward and took another gulp of air, but he wasn't even thinking about how he was crowding Gunmax.

Until the green mecha unfolded his arms and put both hand on his shoulders to shove him away. "Hey, **back off**. I'm not an air freshener!" The trim hips shifted sidelong, and one hand rested on a hip as Gunmax's brattitude climbed back into pre-McCrane heights. The other hand pointed right between Dumpson's optics as if warding him away. "I don't want to smell like diesel, **Wrestlemania**."

That sounded like it referred to him. Great. Now he had an English nickname of his very own. He was going to have to look that up later, because it was probably something insulting. "I don't _smell_," Dumpson grumbled, on the defensive and knowing it because, yeah, he kind of did.

"You do," Gunmax insisted self-righteously. "I can't believe the Boss hasn't said something yet, but maybe he's just too damn nice to say anything about how his sisters likely have to soak all his clothes in grease cutter just to get the reek out."

That gave the Build Team pause.

Did Yuuta really go home smelling like diesel? That wasn't good. Mechanics did it all the time, but Yuuta was a kid. Children were less tolerant to the side effects of extended exposure to gasoline fumes. It might not do permanent damage, but a search of the health resources databank spit up all kinds of side effects from concentrated petroleum byproducts. The levels in the Decker Room weren't up to that level, but nobody had specifically been paying attention to it all this time. While the maintenance bay had huge vent fans to circulate air, the Decker Room had no direct access to outside the building. Humans _died_ from being shut into poorly ventilated rooms with running cars because of carbon dioxide levels!

Also, his sisters were responsible for Yuuta's laundry, and Dumpson would feel absolutely awful if they were forced to wash holes in Yuuta's favorite shirts. They were already secondhand clothes from his sisters, but it was some kind of proud Tomonaga tradition that hand-me-downs were a sign of a thrifty, thriving family. Plus, unlike Power Joe, Dumpson and McCrane knew that sometimes the BP units' Super A.I. naivety - well, didn't precisely _embarrass_ Yuuta, but. Well. Showing up to school smelling like a gas station employee probably wasn't doing him any favors in the classroom.

Even McCrane looked down, away from Gunmax. Power Joe had renewed his search for the candy in his cab, but the way he avoided even glancing up at the slim Highway Patrolman gave away that he was searching as an excuse to not have to reply to the challenge in Gunmax's words. Only Dumpson met the visored gaze squarely, but the red mecha's bulldog tenacity was the sole reason for that courage. He looked, but he couldn't say anything.

Gunmax had them dead to rights, and he had to know it.

Dumpson expected a mocking comment on their sudden guilt, or a snide dig at how they'd accidentally endangered their boss for months without even a thought for his safety. Chemical byproducts of their own bodies, betrayed by _scent_ of all things, and the sonnuva doublebot had them by the short wires because the Build Team nursed a secret not even Deckerd knew about. They'd gone through great pains to make sure Drill Boy never even suspected.

Dumpson had a secret he knew only the other two original Build Team members knew and shared, and that was why they looked away from Gunmax in silent shame. Back when they'd first tried to form Build Tiger, they'd failed. Deckerd's advice had been to keep calm and trust in - _love_ - Yuuta. The Boss. The fourth grader who did his serious best to step into a policeman's shoes every day and fight for them in the adult-level HQ politics he barely understood and could do so painfully little to change. The kid who loved them so fiercely he'd hurl himself in front of them no matter if the foe was forty centimeters or forty meters tall. If anyone deserved their love, respect, and total trust, it was Yuuta. Deckerd had told them to trust that child, because the child trusted them, and they'd _failed_.

They'd failed to form Build Tiger, yes, but the part that made Dumpson cringe behind his glower even now was that they'd failed to trust Yuuta. They'd failed to love him enough.

Dumpson knew that, because there were people who the Build Team _did_ love enough to trust. They'd formed Build Tiger in the end, and it wasn't because of or for Yuuta. They'd gone out and found other people to love that much. Good people: Power Joe's grade school friends, McCrane's Defense colonel, Dumpson's very own reporter. People who chose to stand by them in turn, and that was great. No denying that! Miss Ayako was a baffling individual, and Dumpson couldn't even put a name to what she provoked in him, but she was a good person. None of the Build Team could be ashamed of their friends. They were shy about a couple of those friends being…maybe…something more than just platonic friends, but ashamed? Never.

But they'd failed to return the infinitely precious emotion offered to them, and their lack had been illustrated in a pitilessly stark way. There was no making up for that. _That_, they were ashamed of.

Now Gunmax had pointed out yet another way they'd failed the Boss, and they had no defense. Once more, they'd come up short when it counted. Dumpson expected the Highway Patrolman's next selection of abrasive remarks to rasp their consciences raw, and even though he braced for it, part of him waited to welcome the sting. McCrane would disapprove, Power Joe would go for the green mecha's throat, and Dumpson would get stuck in the irritating role of restraining the power shovel despite wanting to throw a few punches of his own. But deep down in the dark places of his Super A.I. where he'd tucked his team's secret, Dumpson wanted the penance of dealing with Gunmax's bluntness. Nuts and bolts if they didn't deserved to be picked on a bit over this. The green mecha didn't know the secret source of the Build Team's soreness on any topic related to Yuuta, but he'd surely zero in on anything that got a reaction from them.

Instead of a cocky grin and sharp words, however, Dumpson was surprised to find a flask of gasoline shoved in his direction. So surprised, in fact, that he fumbled it, and only Gunmax's quick reflexes kept it from falling to the floor. "Hey!"

"**Jesus Christ**, why do I even bother," Gunmax grumbled, other hand still perched on his hip as he used the other to poke the bulkier mecha in the chest with the flask until Dumpson finally got a grip on it. "**Look**, this isn't a difficult concept. Your tires are picking up the worst of it from the refueling station, because it's got years' worth of spilt oil tracked into the concrete. The other half's probably from driving on asphalt, but it's not like any of you are tidy, **y'know**?" McCrane's face tightened, and Dumpson scowled, but they were listening. The Motorcycle Detective was a jerk and dedicated to giving them a hard time, but the optics half-hidden behind the dark visor were unexpectedly serious. Hard though it was to remember, behind the asshole façade lurked someone who Yuuta clung to and Deckerd smiled at. Occasionally, that hidden heart got through - despite Gunmax's best efforts at stifling it. "You spill drips of diesel out of your intakes while fueling. I know." Gunmax's nose crinkled, which sounded stupid for a robot but was an entirely human expression. "I smell it every time you come back from refueling. So just stop it."

Power Joe had bristled initially, but he subsided out of sheer puzzlement when the green mecha poked at the flask again. "Stop using diesel?" he asked, confused. "But we run on diesel!"

They all had optics. It was physically impossible for them to roll them. Yet, somehow, despite the visor and everything, Gunmax managed to convey that he'd rolled his optics. "Stop using the refueling station, you **complete and total used car lot reject**."

Wow. Power Joe's English nickname was a heckuva lot longer than Deckerd's or Dumpson's. It didn't sound very flattering, either, and Dumpson didn't know enough English to even begin to know how to translate that.

The three Build Team members stared in utter confusion. Gunmax glared back. After half a minute of no response, the Highway Patrolman sighed dramatically and snatched the gasoline flask back from Dumpson's loose grip. "Fine! **Geez**, not like I need to top off, but if it'll get you to stop looking at me like that," he muttered as he twisted the cap off. "**Watch me**. Take notes if you have to. **Hell**, draw a picture."

Ah, sarcasm. That translated easily, at least.

Gunmax heaved another overdone sigh and - swigged from the gas flask.

The move was quick and natural, and Dumpson vaguely recognized it as something he'd seen before without really knowing what he'd been seeing. He recalled wondering what Deckerd had been doing with the gas flask at his desk, but…it had honestly never occurred to him to…huh. Half his vision suddenly overlaid with his own design schematics as he traced the intake routes for his gas tanks, and…yeah. There was an intake from his throat. They were capable of oral ingestion of fuel. Why had they never thought to - ?

Well, obviously Deckerd had, but the patrol car must have gotten the idea from Gunmax. That still didn't answer the question of why it hadn't occurred to the rest of them!

Power Joe shouldered in front of Dumpson, optics wide and fascinated. "What the - I mean," the Kung Fu Detective tried to disguise his excitement by flicking his fingers dismissively, "that's got to taste disgusting." His curiosity came through clearly, making the statement more of a question.

Gunmax grinned and took another drink. "Wouldn't you like to know." The flask swished tauntingly, filled with unleaded, and they were going to have to ask the maintenance crew to start filling flasks for them if they wanted to try fueling this way. The minute diesel flasks started appearing, however, Gunmax was going to know he won, and that just rubbed Dumpson the wrong way because they all knew he already had. Two long sips from the gas flask, and analysis of the air surrounding the green mecha showed only a tiny spike in chemical emission from the gasoline. No picking up old oil from concrete/tire contact, no spills as injector nozzles went into their external intakes; just a fast swallow, and Gunmax had refueled without the stench of gas lingering around him.

"The rest of the office used to complain about the smell," the rogue BP unit said quietly. The words were oddly hurried, as if he didn't want to say them but felt obligated to. McCrane looked up sharply, brow furrowed, but Gunmax had already turned on his heel. One hand waved over his shoulder, half goodbye to the three mecha and half a _whatever_ gesture at the world at large. "I figured out what was wrong and fixed the problem. **Question is**, why didn't you?"

He strode from the Decker Room, and Dumpson knew he was returning to 'the office,' the other office, the Highway Patrol office. The office that wasn't the Decker Room and therefore was more important to him. The question was, what could they do to stop him? What could they do to change his mind?

The Build Team looked at each other, then at the gasoline flask left among the childishly-decorated pens on their desk, and there were no easy answers to be found.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


	4. Pt 4

**Title: ** Caught in Traffic (Pt. 4)

**Warnings: ** Creating a background. Deal with it.

**Rating: P**G

**Continuity:** Brave Police J-Decker

**Characters:** Yuuta Tomonaga, Gunmax

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **_Gunmax - Shut up_

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

The 'what ifs' haunted Yuuta at night.

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Gunmax was screaming.

Not the angry bellows or enraged yells the Brave Police gave during battle. This wasn't the sound of courage or even false bravado. Pained shouts didn't sound like this. If this had been combat, Gunmax would have grunted or yelled as damage was inflicted, then ripped off a smart-ass remark to keep from looking weak. Yuuta knew that. Masaki did the same thing when he fell off the monkey bars on the playground. It didn't stop Yuuta from asking if he was okay, but it allowed his friend to keep his pride. Gunmax was like Masaki: too proud to show pain.

Not now. Right now, Gunmax's voice had gone high and staticky, and he was _screaming_.

Yuuta ran. He ran so hard his chest hurt, but no matter how far he opened his mouth, he couldn't seem to take a deep breath. The hall in Police HeadQuarters stretched on endlessly, the floors passing under his feet but the door at the end getting no closer. He ran and ran, trying to gasp for air that wouldn't come, but the door stayed ahead of him.

He knew where he was going. He had to find Vice-Commissioner Azuma. The Council had voted to decommission Gunmax. They were killing the green mecha, but Yuuta just had to reach Azuma. He could prove Gunmax deserved to live, because of course he did, but his lungs rasped as loud as his heart pounding in his ears, and the door wasn't getting any closer. The hallway just kept going and going, and he was running as fast as he could just to stay in place. His legs wouldn't speed up. He knew he could go faster if he could just take a deep breath and push himself. But if he stopped to catch his breath, even for a moment, the rolling floor would toss him back -

The door suddenly zoomed forward, opening like a threatening mouth with wooden teeth to swallow him whole, and Yuuta threw up his hands to shield his head. "Deckerd!"

He stumbled to a halt on the other side, unharmed and strangely unsurprised to find himself in the BP HeadQuarters maintenance bay. His limbs felt loose and shakey, and he fell down. Landing on the concrete didn't hurt, weirdly, but he didn't think about it. The boy just climbed back to his feet and ventured forward.

The equipment was all dark except for the stand-by blips of ready lights. By those lights, Yuuta could clearly see the Brave Police in their recharge stations. The repair cradles were locked upright, cables wound up and screwed into the mechas' backs, and their optics were all dark in sleep.

All but one, but that one wasn't here. Yet he was the only thing Yuuta could hear.

Gunmax was screaming.

He wasn't _here_, and he was _screaming_, and Yuuta sprinted over to Deckerd because they had to find where Gunmax was. He knew, just _knew_ that they could save him if they could just find him. He was never here, never in the Decker Room, never around, but if Yuuta could just find him and bring him here where he belonged - it'd be okay. It'd all be okay. They just had to find him. Gunmax would be okay if Yuuta could only find him!

"Deckerd! Deckerd, wake up!" The boy ran up the steps of the recharge station and battered his fists against his friend's leg. "Deckerd, where is Gunmax?" His friend remained in deep recharge, blue armor cool under the boy's hands as he clung to it. "Deckerd! Deckerd! We have to find him, Deckerd!"

"Calm down, Mini-Boss," Shadowmaru's amused voice soothed from behind him. "I haven't had time to find where he recharges yet. There have been cases, you know." The amusement chided him for his panic, and Yuuta whirled to peer across the dim garage. Shadowmaru looked down at him, but no one else had woken up. No one else cared, and even the Ninja Detective seemed oddly unaffected by the continued shrieks of tortured pain. "He's not like the rest of us."

"That's not true!" His voice cracked. His throat hurt with how loud he shouted, he couldn't _breathe_, but he couldn't make anyone else _understand_. Yuuta couldn't make them _hear_, and it was important, so very important that they bring Gunmax here. The green mecha had to be here with them, they had to save him. They had to find him, bring him here, and the screaming was so loud the back of Yuuta's jaw hurt with it, or maybe it hurt because he was tensing his whole body with how hard he was trying to make Shadowmaru - make all of them - understand.

The jerk attitude was only a cover, couldn't they see that? Gunmax played it cool, but he was younger than Masaki, and Yuuta hadn't always been friends with the bigger, tougher boy until one day Masaki had gotten his pant leg caught in a manhole cover in the street front of the school grounds. Yuuta had run to help, but the flash of fear in Masaki's eyes when he pushed Yuuta away had been for the smaller boy running into traffic, not for himself. Yuuta had seen it, just like he'd felt Gunmax's fear spike the moment he put himself in the path of destruction with the Highway Patrolman.

_"Stop! Are you insane? Don't endanger yourself!"_

"We have to find him, Shadowmaru! He's hurt!" Yuuta faltered, because Shadowmaru was back in recharge as if he'd never spoken. None of the Build Team had even woken up, and Deckerd was still and quiet. It was like they were all ignoring him. But how could they ignore the nonstop shrieking? It went on and on, and it was building pressure in his chest like he'd been holding his breath for too long.

Yuuta's heart pounded, and his chest hurt as he turned and flung himself toward the office at the end of the room. "Chief Toudou! Chief Toudou, you gotta help Gunmax!" If he could just get the engineer to listen, they could find Gunmax and save him!

The office door _blasted_ open as he reached it. He cried out, ducking his head behind his hands, but the expected wood splinters never came. Instead, his throat suddenly parched and his skin turned tender as a wave of heat crashed over him, and he _knew_ where Gunmax was. He knew, and when he lowered his hands, he was standing in the Tokyo Waste Processing Plant facing an open door that burned fire-hot red-orange. The very air shimmered with heat waves that made him flinch back.

From beyond the door, from below in the smelting pool, came the unself-conscious shrieks of someone in too much pain to stop himself, and the boy knew. He knew there was nothing he could do.

But he was Yuuta Tomonaga, and he didn't know how to not try. "Gunmax!" he yelled, gasping and running against the physical push of air so hot it scorched him. He held his breath and squinted behind the shelter of one upflung arm, and it hurt to go forward. Yet he did. "Gunmax!"

The screams stuttered, voice fading in and out of shrill mechanical creels of agony, and still Gunmax screamed. Still he screamed, even as Yuuta made it to the threshold. The light burned too bright, the air was too painfully hot, and Yuuta's eyes watered too fiercely to see. He didn't want to see. Tears coursed down his face, and it wasn't because of his own pain. He cried, and the tears boiled on his cheeks. He cried because he already knew. He couldn't see, but yet the pain and the screams and horrendous slopping sounds of softening limbs stirring liquid - it was painted so clearly in his mind's eye.

Down below, a vague shadow thrashed against the violent red-orange light of a smelter. The struggles were a death throe as metal melted into metal. The screams were gurgling now, static hiccups of suffering, but Yuuta was glad. He was glad he couldn't see anything, blinded in the light and the tears, and he was glad Gunmax still screamed.

Because soon Gunmax would stop, and the silence afterward would be crueler than anything else in Yuuta's nightmares.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


End file.
